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Hampton Roads Community Foundation Blog

Turn your passion into reality. Our community foundation donors are passionate people with a common mission: inspiring philanthropy and transforming the quality of life in southeastern Virginia. Since 1950, we’ve invested over $225 million on behalf of generous people, who live, work and strive to make Hampton Roads a great community.

The Hampton Roads Community Foundation recently awarded more than $1.9 million in grants to eight nonprofit organizations during its second round of Community Grant funding for 2018. The largest grant was awarded to An Achievable Dream Virginia Beach. It will receive $600,000 over three years to expand its program at Seatack Elementary An Achievable Dream Academy for students moving to sixth grade at Lynnhaven Middle School.

Dr. Jeffery Baker has a special distinction as a Smith Scholar. He was an Eastern Virginia Medical School professor before he was an EVMS medical student. Learn how this Florence L. Smith Scholarship recipient started his medical career.

We remember accountant Melvin R. Green, a good friend of our professional advisor community, who recently passed away at age 96. In 2014, he endowed a scholarship fund at the Hampton Roads Community Foundation to help students earn a four-year degree in business.

Two years ago, Dyontay Beale didn’t know much about sea-level rise. Today he is among 100 students at Suffolk's King's Fork High School learning to be good stewards of our region’s waterways. They are part of the Connecting the Classroom with the Environment program sponsored by the Nansemond River Preservation Alliance.

The Hampton Roads Community Foundation recently awarded 10 nonprofit organizations more than $750,000 in grant funding during its first round of competitive Community Grants for 2018. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation won the largest grant – a $250,000 matching grant to build a mobile oyster restoration center for Hampton Roads.

Norfolk designer Alec Yuzhbabenko is changing the face of the Hampton Roads region where he grew up. This Virginia Tech graduate received a Spigel Architecture Scholarship from the Hampton Roads Community Foundation.

Hampton Roads Community Foundation grants manager Sarah Ellis has more than a decade of experience writing grants for nonprofits. She joined our team in 2017 after writing grants for the United Way of South Hampton Roads and the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore. Here are Sarah's top 5 insider tips for successfully applying for grants.

At his 2017 retirement party from Runnymede Corp, Mike Barrett’s parting gifts included a donor-advised fund at the Hampton Roads Community Foundation. Runnymede Corp. started the permanent fund, which lets Barrett and successor advisors recommend grants to nonprofits in his name.

As 2001 valedictorian at Norfolk’s Booker T. Washington High School, Cherise Williams Newsome dreamed of attending Georgetown University. However, paying for the private university was a challenge. She overcame Georgetown’s private tuition thanks to scholarships, including the Jesse T. Bonney Scholarship from the Hampton Roads Community Foundation. Today, Cherise is an advocate for public education and says it “the great equalizer and pathway to a better life.”

When Shirley Liverman’s husband passed away in February 2017, the Suffolk resident knew she had to find a way to honor his legacy. She recently established the Dr. Milton R. Liverman Memorial Scholarship Fund at the Hampton Roads Community Foundation to honor his love of children and education. The scholarship will help graduating seniors from Suffolk Public Schools pay for college.